In the sleepy agricultural village of Ireby in Cumbria, is the Parish church dedicated to St James.

A monument to the fallen in World War I and II reads:

In memory of the men

Ireby, Cumbria - War Memorial

of this parish who
gave their lives
in the war

1914- 1918

William Carlisle
John Graham
George Lawman
William Lawman
Ben Pattinson
j Dixon Pearson
Joseph Smithson

and in the war

1939 – 1945

Harry Stephens
Joseph Strong
Frank Vipond
Tom Watson

St Jame's church, Ireby

This new church replaced the earlier 12th century building about 1 mile further away and itself is built on the remnants of an old medieval church, especially noticeable in the build of the north wall.  However, most of the structure dates back to it’s early 18th century construction.

The font, which is thought to date from the 18th century sits on an earlier medieval base brought from the original church.

Internal memorials are dedicated to Thomas Thomlinson 1803 and in the chancel, to the Gillbanks family of Whitfield house, who’s vault is in the church.

In the small cemetery, most gravestones are dated around the 18th and 19th centuries.  Any older burials will be sited at the old church but most of these gravestones have now gone.

CA7 1HA
OS Grid Reference: NY2401137930
OS Grid Coordinates: 324011, 537930
Latitude/Longitude: 54.7306, -3.1815

To date, we have been unable to find any transcription records for St. Jame’s church burials in Ireby or for the older Norman church, but if anybody knows different, please do contact us via the comments section at the end of this article.

One of our readers has kindly provided us with a document detailing the burials at Ettleton Cemetery in Newcastleton.

The monument to William Armstrong of Sorbitrees towers above those of others in the small cemetery

Newcastleton sits on the Scottish border in, Roxburghshire and Ettleton cemetery is dominated by Border Reiver names such as Armstrong, Beattie, Crozier and Elliot, of which the largest monument in the cemetery belongs to William Armstrong of Sorbytrees.

The hand typed list provides detailed grave inscriptions for over 250 gravestones and monuments and is a great resource for anybody researching border reiver family history.

It is not known when this list was compiled, but dates on the stones range from early 18th century to mid 20th century.

The provenance and completeness of this list is unknown and was thought to have been collated by somebody researching family genealogy.  However, it is obvious that he or she applied many hours to this enterprise.

Grave stone inscription records such as this are usually collected for private family history research but they play an incredibly important role for others around the world.

We cannot be responsible for the accuracy of the list, and as far as we are aware there are no copyright issues, but please do contact us if you have other information.

Many thanks to the person who took the time to collect this information and to our kind reader, who after using it to research her own family genealogy, has allowed us to publish it for the benefit of others.

A project is under way to try and obtain war grave pictures of the grave or memorial of all the Border Regiment Lonsdale Batallion war dead.

Coxyde Militay Cemetery, Belguim

The creator of the Lonsdale Roll of Honour website intends to obtain as many pictures as he can of the men of the Lonsdales.

The idea is to get a picture of the grave or commemoration on a memorial, which will be available free to those who request it.

A searchable database by surname or cemetery, remembers the war dead of the 11th Battalion of the Border Regiment ( The Lonsdales ), with photographs of the cemetery and in some cases the soldier in question.

The link on the soldiers name will take you to his war grave picture, the cemetery links to a view of this and any other photo’s are labelled accordingly.

Your help required Like many ambitious and dedicated projects of this nature, the creator of the Lonsdale Roll of Honour website would like to make a request to all readers of the site to help in the Lonsdale War Grave Project.

The Lonsdales are buried in France, Belgium, Germany and the UK and help is required to collect images of cemeteries and memorials. A list of burials by cemetery, with directions and cemetery plans showing the approximate location of graves is available.

If you are going to the Western Front and can take a couple of snaps, or live near one of the UK Cemeteries, please help this project. All that is required, is a couple of pictures and a cemetery view.

You may even a relative listed of whom you have a picture, these would also be very welcome. Anybody willing to assist with this incredibly valuable project, contact Spike Kev Johnstone

About the Lonsdale Battalion

The Lonsdale Battalion was part of the Border regiment, formed on 17th September 1914 at Penrith, Carlisle, Kendal and Workington by the Earl of Lonsdale and an Executive Committee.
They were attached to the 97th Brigade of the 32nd Division.

Theatre of War Honours; France & Flanders 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918.
Battle Honours; 1916: Somme, Albert, Ancre.
1917: Ancre, Messines.
1918: Somme, Arras.

The battalion was transferred to the 66th Division of the Border Regiment on the 13th May 1918 and was absorbed into the 1/5th Battalion.  They were eventually disbanded on the 31st July 1918.

More information

Lonsdale Battalion Roll of Honour website

Lonsdale Battalion Cemetery List

Full transcriptions of all headstones in New Zealand have been recorded by the New Zealand Society of Genealogists.

Transcriptions are available from most public libraries and family history centres and the local cemetery authority maintains a database of all burials in their area of responsibility.

Visit the New Zealand Society of Genealogists website

Over 5 Million Parish Records are now available online. Search nearly 500 years of Baptisms, Marriages, Burials between 1538-1900.

Familyrelatives.com is pleased to announce the release of 5 million Parish records online. The database is a collection of historical parish and probate registers from many Counties of England and Wales dating from the early 1500s to the middle to late 19th Century.

Parish registers which are still kept today have been in existence ever since Henry VIII’s Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell, the 1st Earl of Essex ordered that each parish priest should keep a book to record the date of each wedding, baptism and burial, together with the names of those baptized, married or buried.

New Search Technology
The parish records are available for viewing online and using new search technology, it allows leading genealogy website Familyrelatives.com to provide 5 million parish records which document baptisms, marriages and burials dating from 1538 to be searched more easily

Centralised Civil Registration was introduced in 1837 to provide one location covering all the parishes in the area, however the parish church registers provide the original source data to this day.

How Parish records can help you?
If you have reached a dead end and want to search further back than 1837 then the Parish registers are ideal as they cover more than 300 years of family history and events.

References are made to the causes of death including the plague in 1563 and the Plague of London in 1665. Valuable information for your research may include the names of parents, dates, occupation, parish or place name.

Thanks to these registers, history comes alive when you discover records relating to William Shakespeare and his children in The Registers of Stratford-on-Avon (Warwickshire) for Baptisms 1558-1652 & William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare Baptised 26 April 1564 Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere

And his children

Susanna   Baptised 26 May, 1583 Susanna daughter to William Shakspere

Hamnet and Judith   Baptised 2 February, 1585 Hamnet & Judeth son and daughter to William Shakspere.

(Naturally Latin was in use at the time)

A wealth of family and social history
Ancestors who lived in the same Parish for more than a few generations, provide a wealth of continuous information. Unfortunately some of the actual Parish records have been lost or destroyed, while some have been copied and stored in County Record Offices. Now researchers have the thrilling prospect of quick, powerful results, and the possibility of finding an original register entry that recorded an event in their ancestors’ lives.

Familyrelatives.com now gives easy access to important local records, from churches in Cheshire to burials in Berkshire. Family historians can research their ancestors’ records as contemporaries of famous individuals during the times of Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell or Captain Cook.

Due to the age of the Parish registers they have been scanned and the images of the original printed pages have been made word searchable using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which is the recognition of printed or written text characters by a computer to enable the data to be made available on your PC.

The records are free to search but you will need to subscribe to view the original images.

The collection is only a part of more than 650 million historic records available online to all members and visitors by way of an annual subscription.

More information

Visit the Familyrelatives.com website for more information.
How to trace your family tree - BBC Who do you think you are magazine website.

The owner of the Carlislehistory.co.uk website has now completed recording the names on the gravestones in Carlisle’s Richardson Street cemetery, the city’s main burial place since 1855.

A surname index has been produced to the 24,000 names recorded.
 Very useful for those tracing relatives or carrying out family history research.

The site operates a very basic A – Z index and searching the index is free of charge.

More detailed information, such as full gravestone transcription, map and set of pictures are available for a small charge.

Further information

Carlisle City Council Bereavement Services Information about Carlisle Cemetery and details of other municipal cemeteries. Details of opening hours and other services available

Historical searches can be carried out upon request, usually free of charge.